We've done this to ourselves with all this nonsense about everyone needing to go to college and earn a professional degree of one sort or another. We've all heard the saying, "Don't be a fool, stay in school." Having worked as a draftsman and technical illustrator many years ago I learned that sitting behind a desk all day wasn't going to work for me, and since I've always had an interest in repairing broken things I shifted my focus to aircraft maintenance. To qualify to take the FAA exams I enrolled in the A&P program at Glendale College(which has now been shut down due to lack of interest). That program required me to be in class from 8:00 am to 3:30 pm five days a week for four semesters which was far more class time than any number of four year degrees would've required of me, and yet I am officially considered an unskilled laborer by the Federal Government and many others. When interviewing for a Director of Maintenance position for a corporate flight department one increasingly finds that a Bachelors degree in any subject is required in addition to the FAA licensing and years of experience. A degree in aircraft maintenance would be great, but any subject will satisfy the requirement. As it happens I also have an Associates degree from Glendale College which took me an additional two years of study to earn bringing my total class time up to the level of many Masters degrees, but this impresses no one. All that matters is that I don't have a Bachelors. As long as this sort of uninformed snobbery persists young people will shun the trades in favor of traditional four year degrees.

I don't believe it was the job so much but the "culture".  Dad wanted us to go to college because he was a college graduate himself, he was a dentist with the Veterans Administration who was a 1952 Georgetown Dental School graduate.  So he had a lot of education.  It was believed back then that college made you a "better person", that is, you would study literature and learn about history and you would be a kinder person who was good with people and have good conversations.  You would not be part of the culture of for example, steelmaking/coal mining that was get off work, go to the bar, get drunk, go bowling, play the lottery, cuss and swear all the time, get the wife pregnant and just go and do it all again.

Unfortunately, I think by the time any of us came along that "college myth" was gone, because unfortunately, some of the worst people I have known are educated.  When I transferred to a 4 year college it was one of the worst parts of my life, with mean people, mean faculty, bad food, boring weekends and having to learn all alone.  Another school might have been better, but I was not there long.

Anyway, when I would tell dad I might want to work for Sears as a repairman (back when it was possible) I would be told I was throwing away and opportunity.  Of course, back then, college was much less money than it was today.  Also, I was "too nice" a person to be in that "awful' culture.

Meanwhile, I have found many college educated people to be complete assholes, so much for the "better person" myth.  When growing up in our neighborhood, a number of engineers lived there.  All of them were surly, bitter, men who yelled at their kids, cusssed and swore, were rude ushers in the church, were abrupt (never said a complete sentence), and had large families because they were getting the wife pregnant all the time.  I had no idea what an engineer even was.  Later, I worked as a maintenance person at a JCPenney store.  JCPenney requires all manager candidates have a college degree (why? It's not like you have to have chemistry to know about clothes).  All these managers did was hang around the store manager and tell him how wonderful he was (actually, he was quite obnoxious).  Meanwhile, none of them could even figure out how to put clothes on hangers!

How much do you think this "culture" factor has to do with why some jobs are hard to fill?

 nurture the skill sets necessary to think, reason, and solve problems better?  Maybe it was the school I went to but I had classes where the instructor spent their time complaining in class, watching a lot of movies, having older students sit in a circle and complain about their jobs, and having the instructor talk about their kids.  This happened in business classes, I suppose it could not really happen in a math or English class.  But I always wondered what dad would think if he knew he was paying thousands of dollars for complaining, he would be so appauled I never told him.  Does the advanced math help with "solving problems better"?

Oh, and I think a personal trainer might be a good candidate for an appliance technician, they already have experience with customers and they will have a lot of business from the gay community.

As vacerator points out there have been numerous studies showing the long term financial benefits of a college education, but it bears mentioning that as more and more people get college degrees the benefits will diminish. I'm reminded of a line from the movie The Incredibles where the character Syndrome says "When everyone is super, no one will be." With that in mind when everyone has a Bachelors degree a Bachelors won't matter and a Masters will be required to get ahead. When everyone has a Masters a Doctorates will be required, and so on. The truth is in order for a college degree to have any lasting value people must have the option to earn a meaningful living without them.

Many new parts are so expensive that when combined with labor costs it really doesn't make sense to repair.  This is how the manufacturers want it but it is an environmental waste.

As far as the education debate, IMO there was too much emphasis placed on high school graduation rates, just so school districts and states would have good statistics.  Many kids graduated who shouldn't have and it just diluted the value of a high school diploma for everyone.